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“(Just Like) Starting Over”

So tomorrow is D-day. Or M-day. Or something like that. Sometime tomorrow, my mother, her cat, and all her belongings will be arriving. It will be hot and frustrating (the weather forecast has it in the 90s). Someone will probably snap at someone else; there might even be crying. No one of the feline persuasion will be very happy for at least a week. There’s a fair chance something will get broken or otherwise damaged. All in all, it promises to be a barrel of fun.

The process won’t be any fun, but my mother moving in is a good thing. We’re pretty good about staying out of each other’s way if we need to. And since she’ll still be working for a little while at least, she’ll be leaving the house once in a while–something my father didn’t do much even before his health started failing. That means I’ll get some “alone time” in the house. And my mother is pretty similar to me temperamentally: She likes her alone time, too. I’m gonna have to work on the idea she has that she’s some kind of burden who’s imposing on me, but I think we can fix that. She’s been lonely for a long time, and I hope this will help alleviate that.

Even though “(Just Like) Starting Over” is a love song, it’s sort of appropriate for this new phase. We are starting over in a sense; my mother and I haven’t shared a home for over 20 years (I’m not counting the couple of months I lived with her when she broke her arm). With the work done on the house, it is both literally and figuratively a fresh start. Now I just have to get her to quit smoking.